The present invention relates to a stacked connector assembly for transmitting high frequency signals, and particularly to a stacked connector assembly having multiple mating ports for engaging with corresponding mating connectors and modular members which can be easily assembled together.
The number of peripheral instruments of a computer increases, two or more modular connectors are usually designed to form an integral connector assembly thereby simplifying assembly of the modular connectors. Such a stacked connector assembly is commonly an elongate combination of several horizontally stacked modular connectors. The elongate stacked connector assembly is then fixed to an edge of a mother board of a computer. However, a dimension of the edge of the mother board of the computer is limited, and the length of the stack integral connector assembly is thus limited by the dimension of the edge of the mother board.
Another conventional stacked connector assembly as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,612 and Taiwan Patent Application No. 84109709 is adopted for solving the problem described above. The stacked connector assembly is designed to stack a plurality of modular connectors in a juxtaposed manner, while simultaneously stacking another plurality of modular connectors in an overlapping manner. The integral connector assembly commonly comprises a main housing, a plurality of upper inserting members and a plurality of lower inserting members. Each of the upper and lower inserting members comprises a plurality of insert molded terminals for signal transmission therethrough. However, the separated upper and lower inserting members are required to be fixed within the main housing thereby complicating assembly.
In addition, a front shield member and a rear shield member are usually assembled to shield the main housing of the stacked connector assembly disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,612. However, the front and rear shell members cannot sufficiently prevent cross-talk between the terminals of the upper and lower inserting members. Thus, a middle shell is provided to be fixed between the upper and lower inserting members for preventing cross-talk between the terminals of the upper and lower inserting members, thereby resulting in a complex structure of the main housing and a complicated assembly process. Moreover, such a stacked connector assembly does not prevent cross-talk nor does it filter interferential signal communication therethrough resulting from the high frequency characteristics of the stacked connector assembly.